Tourism case studies

These video stories from Northland show how tourism helps create job and business opportunities in New Zealand's regional communities.

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Twin Coast Cycle Trail

We take a trip along the Twin Coast Cycle Trail, Pou Herenga Tai. The trail crosses Northland from the Bay of Islands to the Hokianga Harbour.

Video Transcript

Twin Coast Cycle Trail, Pou Herenga Tai

Narrator: The full Twin Coast Cycle Trail, Pou Herenga Tai, opened in early 2017 and is the northernmost of the 22 Great Rides that make up Nga Haerenga, the New Zealand Cycle trail network.

We’ll take a trip along the trail, which stretches across Northland from the Bay of Islands to the Hokianga Harbour.

We start in Opua, asking Mayor John Carter how the trail is going so far.

Hon Jon Carter QSO, Far North Mayor: Well, it’s been magic, actually, and it’s only in its infancy and you can see the potential of what’s likely to happen as a consequence of having this here and it’ll have a significant positive commercial impact, economic impact, tourism impact, social impact on our whole district.

Narrator: Next stop is Kawakawa, where competitors in the first annual Te Rima multisport event are taking to their bikes.

Marea Timoko is supporting staff and students of Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Kaikohe, where she is tumuaki, or principal.

Marea Timoko, Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Kaikohe: We’ve got one solo student, three teams – three student teams – and two staff teams – two mixed teams – and oh I’m amazed and I’m proud and I just think its way cool, and if this isn’t about pushing our health and wellbeing and, you know, what is?

Narrator: From Kawakawa, we head to Kaikohe – one of the largest towns in the north and around half way along the trail.

Local resident Ray Clarke has started a shuttle and bike hire service. He says they’re much busier so far this season, and growth has been dramatic.

Ray Clarke, Top Trail Hire & Tours: We’ve now got three vans or buses and about 80 bikes. I employ guides to guide groups mainly associated with the cruise ship market and I employ a couple of drivers.

Narrator: Ray’s new venture is beginning to take off, as are other businesses across the Mid-North.

Ray: It’s good to see that there is a little bit of movement and excitement in all of the communities related to the trail, really, to take advantage of the numbers of cyclists that we all expect we will start to see.

Narrator: In the nearby village of Okaihau, Noeline Inverarity’s boutique accommodation business, Okaihau Rail Stay, is seeing the benefit of more visitors coming through the town.

Noeline Inverarity, Okaihau Rail Stay Accommodation: I had this carriage and the ablution block for about three and a half years, realised one wasn’t enough, I needed to expand, so I had these other ones up and running January this year.

So I’m coming into my first full season.

I virtually have my no vacancy sign up the whole time.

I get lots of bookings through the internet and it’s just, it’s good, I absolutely enjoy it.

The cyclists are just such nice people.

I come out here and mix and mingle at night time and, yeah, it’ a really enjoyable business, one that I just find that being able to ease myself into and it’s going better than I imagined. Yeah.

Narrator: Okaihau is much smaller, but like Kaikohe had been declining for many years. Though new businesses, such as eateries and accommodation, are needed in the area, Noeline is hopeful things are about to change.

Noeline: I think we’re going to look back in a few years’ time and go, “Wow, look at hat the cycleway’s done for our township.”

Narrator: At the end of the trail, in the remote community of Horeke, pub owner Peter Maddren is more reticent.

Peter Maddren, Horeke Hotel: I’ve taken on a housekeeper/cleaner, which is the first time, that’s fairly recent. And training her up, because, you know, the rooms are getting used a bit more than they were. Not enough yet, but a little bit more than they were.

Narrator: The Horeke section of the trail opened six months ago, so its early days for this historic and strikingly beautiful area on the shores of the Hokianga Harbour.

Peter: Well, we need a lot more accommodation in Horeke for it to work for this community so that everybody gets a piece of the action, if you like. I’m working on the old house built out over the water that has four more rooms in it, so eventually there’ll be a bit more accommodation but still not enough, still not enough.

Narrator: The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment administers central government funding for Nga Haerenga, the New Zealand Cycle Trail.

We’re helping to create high quality tourism assets that can provide ongoing employment and economic development opportunities, as well as health and social benefits for local communities.

For more information, visit mbie.govt.nz.

Twin Coast Cycle Trail — A new business in Kaikohe

We talk to Jack Poutsma who's building a new café and backpacker business in Kaikohe.

Video Transcript

Twin Coast Cycle Trail, Pou Herenga Tai - Fostering new business in the far north

Jack Poutsma, Entrepreneur, Kaikohe: My name’s Jack Poutsma and my wife Di Maxwell and I have bought the old Bank of New Zealand building.

It was such an iconic building that we really wanted something to be done with it that was appropriate.

The town is a little underserviced in terms of places to eat and places to stay and with the cycle trail passing through Highway 12 about 200 metres from here, we think that the positioning is quite right and the timing sounds good to us as well.

Probably the big motivation was to see something nice done with this building and also to create some employment and lift the town a little.

If you go through town there’s a lot of closed shops. Some of the buildings are a little tatty.

We’re hoping that some of the landlords might lift their game a bit as a result of what we’re doing here.

It will be far and away the most attractive building in town if not the Bay of Islands. We’re pretty positive about that.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment administers Central Government funding for Nga Haerenga, the New Zealand Cycle Trail.

Twin Coast Cycle Trail — Paihia Mountain Bikes

We talk to new business owner Jonny Martin about his bike hire and shuttle service.

Video Transcript

Twin Coast Cycle Trail, Pou Herenga Tai - Fostering new business in the far north

Jonny Martin, Paihia Mountain Bikes: I’m Jonny Martin. I have Paihia Mountain Bikes, which has started up as a result of the Twin Coast Cycle Trail and the Waitangi Mountain Bike Park, which we’re stoked to have up here in the Bay of Islands and Northland.

At the moment we’ve got three people that are on board pretty much full time, but that’s going to escalate quite a lot as we come into summer.

Hopefully we’ll get to double digits and moving forward I don’t see why there couldn’t be well more than 10 or 15 people employed, which would be fantastic.

New Zealand Cycle Trail objective: Create high-quality tourism assets

We’re getting lots of domestic tourists from Auckland, lots of international tourists that are coming to Paihia without their bikes and they’re realising that we’ve got a world-class cycle trail and a world-class mountain bike park and they’re getting out there using it all.

We’re having lots of big groups booking from the South Island that have maybe done the Alps2Ocean, maybe done the Otago Rail Trail, and now they’re ticking off the Twin Coast.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment administers Central Government funding for Nga Haerenga, the New Zealand Cycle Trail.

Tourism in Northland

We talk to Paul Davis from Northland Incorporated about the positive effect tourism's having on the region's communities, businesses and local economy.

Video Transcript

How important is Tourism to Northland's economy?

Paul Davis, GM Regional Promotions & Tourism, Northland Inc: Tourism’s one of the major industries in Northland’s economy and if you look at tourism around New Zealand, Northland ranks number six in terms of either guest nights or visitor spend.

Tourism’s the second largest industry sector from a jobs point of view, after agriculture and forestry combined.

All regions of New Zealand have seasonality or dispersal as an issue to some extent. Here we have extremities in Northland.

We’ve got one of the most seasonal visitor industries in the country – very high peak with domestic visitors over the Christmas/New Year period and a very low trough through the winter months – based around our long-term reputation as a summer holiday destination.

A lot of the products and services, experiences, we have here are based around outdoors experiences and the water.

The issues around tourism and jobs are the same as – you know – they mirror the pattern of tourism visitation. That is, we have a lot of seasonal jobs, so the challenge is to change those to more year-round jobs and higher value jobs.

If you said to many tourism businesses in Northland that there were too many people, for most months of the year they’d say , “no, we can handle a lot more”. --- Visitors spend $1.1 billion per year in Northland. (Source: MBIE Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates October 2017) --- 231,000 people are directly employed in tourism across New Zealand. (Source: Stats NZ Tourism Satellite Account 2017) --- $14.5 billion per year, international tourism is New Zealand’s biggest export earner. (Source: Stats NZ Tourism Satellite Account 2017) --- The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment supports the Tourism sector to attract high-value visitors, not only to hotspots during the peak season, but to a range of regions throughout the year.

www.mbie.govt.nz

Tourism in Northland — Ngawha Springs Hot Pools

We talk to business owner Diane Ruawhare about the positive impact of tourism on local communities.

Video Transcript

Is Tourism good for Northland?

Diane Ruawhare, Ngawha Springs hot pools: Yes, it is.

We have the tourist buses from Paihia – I mean, little wee companies like Haka Tours and Kiwi Tours in their vans come here – even those who are doing the wakas, the canoes out at Waitangi – there are customers that he takes up to the Cape and Waipoua Forest and then they’d like to come here and unwind, you know, to relax.

Our takings in the last couple of years have almost doubled and we haven’t increased the charges – it’s still the same as it was eight years ago. We’d like people to come to enjoy, not to feel it’s too expensive to enter, you know.

Maybe it’s the naturalness of the waters, even Rotorua Māori come up here and they’re most surprised. They imply it’s like the good old days, you know.

Then again, it could be just the atmosphere. It’s nice and relaxing and a lot of international visitors they find it appealing because they’re able to communicate with people in the same pool. --- Visitors spend $1.1 billion per year in Northland. (Source: MBIE Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates October 2017) --- 231,000 people are directly employed in tourism across New Zealand. (Source: Stats NZ Tourism Satellite Account 2017) --- $14.5 billion per year, international tourism is New Zealand’s biggest export earner. (Source: Stats NZ Tourism Satellite Account 2017) ---

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment supports the Tourism sector to attract high-value visitors, not only to hotspots during peak season, but to a range of regions throughout the year.

www.mbie.govt.nz

Tourism in Northland — Accountant, Jack Poutsma

We talk to Paihia accountant and entrepreneur Jack Poutsma about the positive impact of tourism on his local community.

Video Transcript

Is Tourism good for Northland?

Jack Poutsma, Accountant and Entrepreneur: I’m an accountant, I work in Paihia. My clients are either involved in tourism or benefit from tourism.

I’ve seen Paihia blossom, I’d like to see the whole Bay of Islands and inland across to Hokianga blossom as well.

Zivana: I live in Kaikohe. I dropped out of school when I was 15. For school, I felt like I wasn’t learning new things there.

Narrator: But is tourism and hospitality really a worthwhile career path?

Harvey Bourne, Head of School: Well the job we’re training them for is to be more than just a waiter. We’re training them to be a manager.

Narrator: Northland is well known for high levels of unemployment. So, is the work really there?

Harvey: They’re screaming out for trained people up here. There’s a shortage of industry trained professionals right around the world – not just New Zealand, but the world.

Narrator: Seasonality is a problem for Northland’s tourism industry. High quality service could help attract visitors year-round.

Nikki Maunder, Internship Manager: Already with our students here doing unpaid shift work in the industry, we’ve noticed that they’ve had to up their standards, here in Paihia especially, which is really good to see.

And having those students readily available when they need staff has really impacted the community.

Narrator: So, what are Zivana’s aspirations?

Zivana: My part-time job at the moment is a food and beverage attendant at the scenic hotel in Paihia, but I do see myself actually managing my own little business or running my own little business in future. --- Visitors spend $1.1 billion per year in Northland. (Source: MBIE Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates October 2017) --- 231,000 people are directly employed in tourism across New Zealand. (Source: Stats NZ Tourism Satellite Account 2017) --- $14.5 billion per year, international tourism is New Zealand’s biggest export earner. (Source: Stats NZ Tourism Satellite Account 2017) --- The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment supports the Tourism sector to attract high-value visitors, not only to hotspots during peak season, but to a range of regions throughout the year.